Just Be Quiet Mom!

Ahh Yes, another wonderful comment now coming from my child's mouth. There's nothing like you talking all nice and calm to your child to help her calm down in a bout of frustration over not being able to draw a face the way she wanted to and have her yell back at you, "Just Be Quiet Mom!"

We obviously had a bit of a stern conversation about the proper way to speak to people, let alone her mother. Not that it has stopped her from saying that, but now she says it in a softer voice; enough to have me hear it but not enough to where she should get in trouble - so she thinks.

Again, I just hear this escalating in the teen years. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who hears their small children say things that immediately project themselves to the future and how it's going to be? Plus I can see a lot of me in her when she gets easily frustrated with things. I think that scares me more. I've really had to adjust my "patience" level.

At least, for the most part, we've had a better week. I did get a report from her school about her development. They check her Gross Motor Skills, her Fine Motor Skills, and her Language Ability.

No surprise here, but she scored above average on her language ability. I could've saved them the trouble and told them that! Or they could just come to my house for a day and see the conversations that take place (like the one above).

As for the other two, she's a bit below her age range, especially in the Gross Motor Skills area, such as running, jumping, etc. This shocks me because of all the different activities she's involved in (swim, gymnastics, T-Ball). Although, they said the same thing last year at her screening. I just assumed last year it was her not listening or paying attention to what was asked of her as being the culprit of a low score but now that it's happened twice, I had to look into it.

I asked both sets of teachers what they felt the issue was with her gross motor skills and both said that she seems a but clumsy. She trips over her feet, doesn't quite kick a ball, etc. One teacher even said that she could be standing against a wall and then the next thing they know she's on the floor and they have no idea why.

I felt like asking, "Does genetics play any part in your grading? Especially the female gene?" "Just look at my mother and myself, we'll tell you we're clumsy." After thinking about it, I guess they're right, she does seem to fall quite a bit but I attribute that to not paying attention to her surroundings and banging into things, or tripping over things, etc. I figured it's a spatial-relation issue - not recognizing her feet in relation to her body. Plus, she's so tall for her age, it could be hard for her to carry around her body. Not that it's freakishly out of proportion or anything but these were just my thoughts. As for kicking a ball...well, that's her parents fault. We don't go around kicking balls very often or encouraging her to, but now that we know there's a foot to ball deficiency we can work on that come Spring.

I like these reports to an extent. I like to see where she's falling short and needs work on but at the same time I feel like a "failing" parent. It makes me think maybe we need a Wii for Christmas and we can work on these things in the Winter (hint, hint..to my husband.)

They did notice a "mature grasp on the pencil" for her fine motor skills. So even though she's just a bit behind I guess all in all she's okay there. This past weekend she was writing her name by herself and got frustrated that she couldn't write the "K." I tried helping her but she just got more frustrated. I was just ecstatic that she wrote her name (in no particular order) all over the paper.

This weekend brought another birthday party, for her Uncle Jared who turned 30. She again was getting a bit miserable after a long day of gymnastics practice for her Christmas program. So during the day, I finally said, "That's it!!! Nap time!" She refused but still went up and promptly fell asleep for two hours. She definitely needed it...so did we! She had a lot of late nights starting last Tuesday and she had to be up late Friday for gymnastics practice too so by Saturday she needed to catch up on much needed sleep.

She at least was more compliant at the practice's. What was funny on Friday night was that during one of the songs, all the little kids come out and do there little thing and then they run off and the bigger kids are running and flipping and out runs Makenna onto the floor! I was stunned and frozen in fear. Another mom started pointing to the director and saying, "little kid! little kid!" and the director turned and saw her on the stage and got her off. At least she thought it was funny and cute. Unfortunately we have that same schedule of practice this Friday and Saturday so I hope we can have good results for that too. By the end of last Saturday's she had, had it and kept asking when we could go. I don't know how she's going to get through all the shows if she can't even put up with the practice!

I can see it now, "Makenna, hurry, get out on the stage, you're supposed to be on the stage!" Her reply, "JUST BE QUIET MOM!"